Hello from the Common Health Coalition! The 2-4-2 Digest is a weekly snapshot for health leaders - 4 key insights in 2 minutes or with 2 swipes on your phone.

Weekly Health Insights

Chronic Disease Funding: CMS launched MAHA ELEVATE, a voluntary Innovation Center initiative that will fund up to 30 organizations to test evidence-based lifestyle and functional medicine interventions not currently covered by Medicare. A notice of funding opportunity will be released in early 2026.

Gonorrhea: The FDA has approved two new oral treatments for gonorrhea, which affected about 600,000 people in the U.S. last year. The approvals mark the first new treatment options in decades, as growing antibiotic resistance threatens the effectiveness of the last remaining injectable therapy.

COVID-19: A CDC analysis of 98,000 pediatric cases across 9 states found that the 2024–25 COVID-19 vaccine reduced emergency and urgent care visits among children and young adults. The vaccine effectiveness was 76% for children ages 9 months to 4 years old and 56% for children and adolescents aged 5-17 years. 

Health Legislation: After Senate proposals to extend enhanced ACA subsidies failed, House Republicans introduced a health care bill that does not extend the subsidies and instead focuses on employer-based coverage options, association health plans, and PBM transparency.

Colleague Corner

In a recent commentary on the partnerships health care needs now, Dr. Garth Walker, Jonathan Blum, and Dr. Omar Lateef describe how fragmentation across health systems, public health, and payers is becoming harder to sustain amid Medicaid changes, workforce strain, and growing population health needs.

“As we navigate this new policy landscape, we should look to academic medical centers and safety-net hospitals to help drive transformation in the delivery of care. Working together, AMCs, safety nets, public health organizations and payers can meet the moment, ensuring the most vulnerable patient populations are not left behind and physicians feel empowered to deliver care ethically and freely.”

– Dr. Garth Walker, CMO, Rush Health; Jonathan Blum, former Principal Deputy Administrator and COO, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; Dr. Omar Lateef, President and CEO, Rush University System for Health

Data Watch

A new KFF survey of Marketplace enrollees finds affordability remains a central concern as enhanced ACA subsidies near expiration: 61% report difficulty affording deductibles and out-of-pocket costs, and 58% say even a $300 increase would strain their finances.

Measles report: In the U.S., there have been 1,926 confirmed measles cases. Last week, Connecticut identified its first case of measles since 2021 and South Carolina’s outbreak has resulted in 303 people in quarantine and 13 in isolation. For ongoing updates, visit our Resources page. Read the latest deep-dive from the Yale SPH here.

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